


Break Your Heart & Give You Mine

by Lang



Series: Alpha Alice & Omega FP [3]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, F/M, Intersex, Violence, mentions of abuse, mentions of mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-18 17:50:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11295687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lang/pseuds/Lang
Summary: Concerning Alice's daughters, Alice and FP's sons, and the question of FP's intelligence.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This will make more sense if you read the prior versions, but if you don't want to, then all you need to know is that Alice is an alpha, FP's an omega, and they have a very fucked up, dub-con-y relationship that has produced two kids, Chic and Jughead.

Because Chic was now Harvey Kinkle, coach of the Baxter High Ravens and one of Riverdale High's most scorned enemies, the Blue & Gold ran the story: WHO ARE BAXTER HIGH? LOOKING BEYOND FIFTY YEARS OF RIVALRY. 

Alice cut it out, scissor strokes neat and even. She put it in an envelope right next to a letter on pale blue stationary. The stationary was important. The even, unhurried penmanship was important. The words had been carefully chosen:

_My children, acting under some very bad advice given to them by a third party, thought this would be the best way to approach you._

Followed by a page, no more, explaining Betty's journalistic prowess, Jughead's nose for investigation. Polly's unbridled curiosity, the way she'd brimmed with excitement at learning that Harvey had a cat and a girlfriend and helped that girlfriend run a stall at the yearly Greendale antiquarian book fair.

Then, as an afterthought, at the end, _your birth mother, Alice._

It would tell Harvey that his mother was polished, middle class. Devoted to her children.

She regretted it two seconds after she dropped it in the mailbox. She ended up picking the lock on the mailbox door. 

Alice Cooper, in her dressy blouse and prim navy heels, committing a federal crime. 

When she finally retrieved the letter she brought it home and propped it up on the dresser. Stared at it. Composed a newer, more truthful letter in her head. 

_Dear Chic,_

_Or Harvey. Whatever works._

_I'd commit a federal crime for you. I'd do it without caring, and only worry later about who saw me and whether I'd go to prison._

_Incidentally, that's where your father is right now. The school article was his idea, not mine._

-

Her lawyer had told her not to visit FP. It would only add fuel to Hal's ravings: that she was adulterous, that she was low-class, that she was a whore.

In response to that last one, under the watchful eye of her lawyer, his lawyer, and their court-appointed mediator, Alice had calmly picked up a small vase sitting innocently by the door and hurled it at his head.

Hal went to meet Polly that afternoon sporting a black eye. Polly came home distraught. It was still early in the divorce then, just two months after Alice's article, and Polly wasn't coping well. 

"Why him?" she asked Alice. 

Polly wasn't Betty. She had a slower, sweeter loveliness, everything about her at once more mellow and more regal than her sister. When Alice had learned that Jason Blossom had left Polly pregnant, she'd been filled with indescribable rage. Bad enough for it to happen to Alice. Worse for it to happen to a girl like Polly, so carefully sheltered all her life.

"He's the man who dumped Jason's body," Polly said. Her hand was on her belly, and somehow she made that simple act look defiant. "Just threw it in the river. Like it was trash."

Alice was arranging the cutlery on the table in anticipation of dinner. A vicious divorce, outing her origins to the town, discovering one son and then another -- 

None of it was a reason to be sloppy with the place settings.

"Really Polly," she said, when she was done. "It's not like he'd done that when _I_ knew him."

-

Actually, she hadn't thought in detail about FP's crimes for years. Mostly because they'd been her crimes, too. Started small -- batting her eyes at a pretty yellow-gold locket in Waldenbuck's Department Store, betting him he couldn't steal it for her. Then it escalated. Fights, gambling, dealing fireworks, dealing drugs.

If she could tell Polly anything about crime, it would be that it was boring. You did it because you were bored, or because you needed money, or you wanted something. And it became routine, as routine to her then as stopping by the ATM was now. 

But the flip side, the flip side was how unpredictable and how traumatic it could get. Boring, then suddenly not. And not-boring in the worst way. Boring, until the black-eyed boy who'd held your hand the first time you snuck into the Bijou got jumped, and ended up with a concussion and three cracked ribs. 

Alice remembered dragging him to his truck and driving him to the clinic, smacking him to keep him awake. 

Saying, "Come on, stupid. Don't sleep. You can't sleep."

FP had had trouble walking, but no trouble saying back, "Don't call me stupid, Alice. Always calling me stupid. Jesus." 

The words had been a little slurred. Slurred enough to make her scared, scared enough to make her mad. Even then, every emotion she'd ever felt for FP Jones had led her down the path to anger. 

He wasn't smart enough, or he was smart when he shouldn't be. He wasn't popular enough, or he was too popular in the wrong ways, prowling Riverdale High for Vixens. He was better-looking than Hal, inappropriately so, in a rawboned, trailer trash way she hadn't wanted people to know she liked. 

He smelled like sin, like the omega he was, and hardly anybody else had ever seemed to notice. It had only ever seemed to cloud Alice's brain, leave Alice wanting to corner him once they were back home. Whenever she did, he gave it up so easy, like whatever they did meant nothing to him. 

She remembered, once, riding him until she saw stars and then getting annoyed about it, about how she could do this with him when with Hal (who she _should_ want) had fucked her like it was a nine-to-five and left her wondering when she'd get to go home.

"I'd like an omega," she'd told FP casually, when she was done. Climbed off him and pulled her bra back on.

"Shit, don't you have one? Or am I roadkill?" he'd said. 

"I want one less used and less scared of his snatch," she'd told him meanly. Said it, really, just to see him go white and jump up, pull his pants on, storm out. Cursing the whole time. 

And in the middle of the litany of curses, something she hadn't listened to at the time.

_When am I enough, Alice? When am I enough for you?_

Sometimes FP wasn't stupid. Sometimes FP was smart at the wrong times, or in the wrong ways. Sometimes he had enough cleverness to get him halfway there. 

Back then, nothing had been enough for Alice, and nothing would be enough until Polly, until Betty. Until she got out, until she had two girls she could raise far away from the trailer park, keep sheltered and safe, nothing could ever have been enough. 

So it hadn't been personal.

Except that was a lie. With him it always was, always got personal fast. When he told Betty and Jughead to investigate Harvey, she jumped at the chance to make it personal, jumped at an excuse to see him, if only to correct his mistake.

When she finally saw him, his hair was buzzed shorter, he was leaner. But he still had his stubble, his dark eyes. Still was a ravaged, unkempt kind of hot. 

Only his smell was gone. That bothered her all through the visit. It was all chemicals -- suppressants, he told her eventually. He was _suppressed_.

She felt like something had been taken from her.

-

In the end, she wrote a nice letter to the prison warden (blue stationary), explaining the situation, their history, two boys, two pregnancies. This was all against her lawyer's advice. But it got them conjugals, which was really the point of the thing. 

She wanted his sinful-sweet whiskey smell back. None of those chemicals that fogged him up. 

But the nature of FP Jones was to frustrate her. He still stank like chemicals when she showed for the conjugal, still had the patch tucked behind his ear. She twisted his lobe to make a point, not hard, but not with any warning either. He twisted out of her grasp, cursing. 

"Alice!" he said. "What. The. Fuck."

"Do you need me or not?" she demanded. "Because I don't have to drive thirty miles every weekend to the federal prison. I have plenty more I could be filling my days with, FP."

Work at the Centerville Chronicle, which had scooped her up as soon as Hal had fired her. Looking after the twins when Polly was in school, making sure the nanny understood their quirks and needs. Weekly check-ins with the Wilkins, Jughead's empty-headed caretakers. He swore they were _nice_ , but people who collected state funds for looking after a teenager and then didn't even bother to impose a curfew or make sure he looked presentable couldn't really be that nice. 

FP was still sitting on the sad little prison cot and cursing. Alice hooked the bottom of his chin with a finger, made him tilt his head up at her.

"Do you need me or not?" she repeated.

That wasn't the question. She'd never asked him the real question. Not if he needed her, but if he _wanted_ her. When he'd been young and skinny and humming with pleasure at the chance to eat her out, she'd assumed he did. But then when he hadn't gone after her when she'd had Chic, she'd assumed he didn't want her enough. 

After what she'd done to him, he shouldn't want her at all. 

Now he leaned back on his elbows and exhaled hard.

"I didn't think you were gonna show," he told her. "And it's a pain to come on and off suppressants for no reason, Alice."

Jughead, who'd been getting his from some shady South Side clinic for years, had told her as much. Had stubbornly refused to try a better brand, one she'd offered to buy for him. So she'd recruited Betty, bright and insistent, her daughter the only lever she could think of to get Jughead to agree. Eventually he had agreed. Then he'd spent a week nauseous, vomiting up his food, as his body adjusted to the new formula. 

All things considered, maybe it made sense for FP to hold off until he could be sure she was serious. Or maybe he didn't want her to be serious, didn't want her fucking him like that. He never had before. Never said he wanted her at all. Never once asked, _you wanna be my girl, Alice?_

Granted, she wouldn't have said yes. But it bothered her now that he'd never even asked. Unspoken teenage fuck-pacts were all very well and good in the moment, suited to the South Side girl she'd been, the girl she wasn't particularly proud of now. But now, two decades later, she somehow had two children with this man. He'd given her a child she'd never expected. He'd apologized for Chic. 

She felt possessive around him, the emotion a surprising hook in her belly. 

"Well?" she told him now. "Are you going to tell me what you want out of this, or are you going to keep wasting my time?"

He wiped his mouth with his hand -- he was always drawing attention to his mouth, this one -- and said, "When'd I ever waste your time, huh? Once you had me on my knees--"

"I don't see you on your knees," she snapped.

Down he went, but with a grin, with that old FP cockiness. Alice felt her gut tighten, her dick start to peek out, throbbing. She sat before him on the cot and in an instant his rough hands were at her waistband, pulling down her skirt, her pantyhose. 

He looked vaguely charmed by the pantyhose, and by the trim white underwear.

"Oh, you got classy," he said, whistling between his teeth.

"Thank you," she said.

"That's not a compliment. I liked you fine before," he said.

Ludicrous. _Before_ had been concussions and fights, cursing and storming off. She cuffed him lightly on the back of his neck. In response, he ducked his head and got to work. He put his mouth to her vagina, licking softly until she was good and wet. His big hands took her dick in hand, gave it some good, purposeful strokes to get her fully hard. Then, inexplicably, he pulled back a little. Pressed a little kiss to the tip. Grinned at her. 

Fuck. He was _fun_. He was fun, and she'd completely forgotten. She didn't know if she wanted to kiss him or berate him for not warning her he could be -- be _goofy_ like this -- so she settled for guiding him to her dick. Idly wondering if he'd pull away.

He didn't. He took her in his mouth, choking a little as he adjusted to the size. One of his hands was still rubbing at her folds. She tangled her hands in his hair, setting the rhythm for him. He was somehow roguish and erotic like this, lashes fanning out on his cheeks, lips wrapped around her length. His mouth felt nice and hot, wetter than anything. Before she knew it she was coming -- coming double, pulled to the brink so easily because FP Jones apparently still knew her so well. He pulled off and cursed once, then switched his mouth and his hands. Mouth suckling her clit, hands jerking her to completion, getting come all over the edge of the cot. 

No frills, that was FP. But good. Better than Hal. Better than she'd had in a while. When she was wrung out and sated, she breathed hard and looked down at him, still kneeling on the floor.

He had one hand down the front of his jumpsuit, contorted oddly. It took her a second to understand why. He was fingering himself. Had been fingering himself, getting off, but not like a normal man. Like an omega. Like he wanted to be filled.

Just like that, Alice was wet and hard again. Just like that, she wanted to take this from him. Wanted to bend him over on the concrete floor and give him what he so clearly needed. 

Unbidden, a memory of Jughead dashed that. 

_Maybe they don't tell me what to wear because they know they don't get to make decisions for me,_ he'd said, looking up at her so sharply it was like he was stabbing her. _Maybe they don't assume I belong to them like that. I like that. They're nice._

It was cold water, like being dunked in the Sweetwater. She felt her lips press together. Closed her eyes and inhaled. 

"FP," she heard herself saying. "Up here."

He paused with a groan, but obeyed, pulling himself onto the cot. She settled a hand on his back. This close he was so warm, but his eyes slanted to her, wary. 

"Let me," she said. 

It was like _Can I?_ or _Do you want--?_ or anything that might give him a chance to say no -- like these things wouldn't even fit in her mouth. She bit her lip, frustrated. 

There was no reason for that, after all. Back when he'd been a boy, FP had never said no. She'd only had to bat her eyes, and there he was, pulling whatever she wanted out of his jacket: a yellow-gold locket, a trim white blouse, a tube of lipstick. 

Pink Perfection, so she could go out with Hal Cooper and forget the boy who'd do anything for her. 

She pushed the top of his jumpsuit off of his shoulders. His skin was hot despite the cool of the room. He had scars she didn't recognize -- two on his arm, one on his pec. When she traced them, she felt him take in a breath. It was such an oddly vulnerable reaction that it made him seem briefly younger, reminded her of that constant Sunnyside boy, wild and quiet. Hers by default, because nobody else had wanted him.

Her hand crept down to his opening. Then FP opened his big mouth and ruined it.

"I'll take care of that, Alice. You do what you want. But not there."

Annoyance cut through her.

"Sorry, FP," she said, keeping her voice even and sweet. "I didn't realize you were still scared of your _vagina_ \--"

"I was never scared," he said, a snarl in his tone. "Shamed. Shame's the word your looking for. Don't know why you're complaining about it now. You always liked me ashamed."

She sat back, stung. It was either that or dig her nails into him, and she didn't want to give someone like FP Jones the satisfaction of tempting her into violence. He'd be worse than Hal. Hal was pompous. FP would be knowing.

"Excuse me for trying to help--"

"Oh, you do," he said. "Don't worry. You're still hot. Still fine. Nobody like you, Alice. Don't worry."

"So what's the problem?" Alice demanded impatiently.

He laughed. The son of a bitch _laughed_. And it wasn't the quiet, wild laugh of his younger days. This was the bitter snake snicker he'd given last year at her dinner table, right after he'd said:

 _I don't care what you think of me, Alice_.

Now he said: "Fine isn't going to make me trust you, Alice. I'm dumb, but I'm not that dumb."


	2. Chapter 2

He'd been wanting Alice for so long and he hadn't been subtle about it, either. 

But it felt nice to flip things for once. A shift in power. Just for a moment, one moment in all the time he'd known her, when Alice wanted what she couldn't get. _Her_ wanting _him_. 

"Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face," said FP's cellmate, Axel.

FP reached a hand down under his bunk and flipped Axel the bird. Axel was unaffected.

"Anyway, you have this reporter showin' up for you and you blow it?" Axel continued. "I thought you said you said you didn't even have an alpha."

Yeah, well. FP had thought so too. And he wasn't going to examine the nervous joy that had jumped through him when Alice had suggested otherwise. A feeling that fluttery, that intense, that was alright for a kid. Alright for somebody like Jughead, always wrapped up in his head, always quietly wishing for a girl who could rescue him.

FP wasn't like that.

"She doesn't really want me," he explained. "I don't know what she wants. Never could figure that out."

"So why's she wasting her time showing up here?"

FP thought about it.

"I gave her the best thing I've got," he decided. "Gave her my boy."

"A kid that's rightfully hers," Axel said, snorting. "Alright, then." 

No. No. Jughead had resulted from Alice, sure. But somebody couldn't be yours if you'd never known about them, and they definitely couldn't be yours if you didn't want them. Alice wanted Jughead _now_ , but hardly a year ago she'd been trying to drive FP and his boy out of her life, out of her daughter's life.

FP understood. It wasn't personal. It was just Alice protecting what was hers. FP could respect that. 

But he'd changed something in her, maybe, when he'd told her Jug was hers. Now she'd extended her circle of protection to his boy. Problem was, that left her dealing with FP, too.

Like he'd handed her a gift, but stuck a rattlesnake in it.

-

Once, he'd given Alice stuff all the time. Frilly department store blouses, roll-on perfumes, boxes of hair dye. None of it a gift, really. More casual than that. More about how it was just gentlemanly, making sure she had whatever she wanted. If he got twenty minutes kissing her between her thighs, then he could take a few seconds to swipe her what she asked for the next time they were at the drugstore together. And, back then, that kind of thing had been fun. Alice had made it fun, with that tilt of her eyebrows, with the way something devilish would settle in the corner of her mouth.

When she got a look like that on her face -- well. Most people would say it was a dare. It was. But it had never felt competitive or challenging to him. More like she was giving him some kind of reward, digging up something real and hungry -- her want -- and letting him see it. So he'd felt like the least he could do was grab a pack of nail files for her. A necklace. A pink lace dress. 

He'd almost been arrested over the dress. In hindsight, he hadn't been the smartest kid. 

But he hadn't _felt_ dumb -- just stupidly pleased with himself. Earning that open want in her eyes before he'd even done anything to deserve it. So when he passed off the goods -- the hair ties or the lipstick or whatever -- and all she said was a disinterested, "thanks," it hadn't bothered him much. 

The theft was the thanks, his thanks to her for letting him see the real Alice.

There was just one time it hadn't worked that way. One time he'd wanted some gratitude -- shit, some acknowledgement. Sophomore year. That was the year Alice had started to really change, started wearing cardigans and pinning her hair up. Not at home. At Sunnyside, she was as wild as ever, barefoot half the time, cigarette behind her ear, Serpents jacket hanging on a peg by her door in case they got called down to the Whyte Wyrm for something.

That was the year they joined the Serpents. The year the real Alice, hungry and mean and glorious, unfurled every night at the trailer park, only to get pinned up with her hair on the way to school the next day. 

The year, too, she'd gotten her license. He heard her talking about it by the lockers, making a big fuss, and heard the way the other girls responded with envy.

"Well, I guess now you won't have to make Hal drive you to school every day," said Hermione, snooty about it. 

"He'll be sad. He enjoys it," Alice said, so sweet about her response that there was no room for argument.

FP had been frankly astonished by the whole exchange. Licenses weren't a big deal on the South Side, where kids were riding beat up dirtbikes as soon as their parents thought it would be funny to see them do it. But on the North Side this kind of thing mattered. To Alice, this mattered. 

It kind of mattered to him too. Alice used to walk with him every day, until Hal Cooper had started picking her up at the corner by the laundromat. Soon as that laundromat came in sight, she'd speed up, leave FP behind. Start pinning up her hair. It was unspoken that she didn't want FP intruding on this. This was her and Hal's thing. FP got the real girl. And Alice got Hal, and cardigans, and the chance to pretend she hadn't spent a childhood in the mud outside the trailers.

FP wasn't such a fool that he thought she'd start riding with him instead of Hal, once she got her license. But he wondered if maybe she'd be less inclined to pin up those parts of herself she thought made her trash, made her less than girls like Hermione. Maybe she didn't need Hal and those frilly department store cardigans. Maybe she needed a few minutes in the morning with herself, alone on the road, in control of where she went next. Maybe that was what made the license so promising.

But for freedom, she'd need more than a license. She'd need a car, too. He figured out pretty quick that she'd get it from her dad. Glenn Roarke was always buying wrecked old cars from the junkyard and fixing them up to sell to North Siders who wanted something classic-looking. He'd been working at the same old Dodge for months, a two-toned green thing, nice-looking, fit for a Serpent girl. FP took to stopping by and appreciating it openly. It would suit Alice, he figured. 

"You think it ought to have mirrors like that?" he'd ask, while Glenn was working on it.

Glenn would look at him reproachfully.

"You got plans for this car, boy?"

"Just seems like the mirrors don't fit," FP would say defensively. "That's an old car, you're putting new sideview mirrors on. It's not gonna look right."

Alice was all about looks. Having a car that looked right would be important to her.

"You want to go down to the junkyard and find the originals, be my guest," Glenn would say. "Saves me the trouble."

So he did. Got to haunting the place in the little daylight there was after practice, sifting through the innards of every car the North Side had tossed in the past thirty years or so. It pissed _his_ old man off, since he thought this meant FP was out with the Serpents every week. FP got his head knocked into the kitchen cabinets more than once before the car was finished. But he found the mirrors, too, and the bumper, and the right hubcaps for the thing. Had an idea in his head of what it should look like: serviceable, working class, but not ugly. Something obviously South Side, yeah, but something special, too. 

Which was why it was such a shock to walk out of school one day and find Alice and her friends cooing over a mild grey sedan. It was just sitting there, indistinguishable from half of the other cars at Riverdale High except for a huge floppy red bow and Hal Cooper leaning proudly out of the front seat.

"He fixed it up for her," Mary gushed. "Isn't that sweet?"

Everybody thought so. Not FP. When he and Alice were running some cash for the Serpents that weekend, in the goddamn grey sedan to boot, he said, "I thought you were gonna take the one your old man was fixing up. The one I was helping him with."

"Why would I want a junkyard car?" Alice snapped.

"We were making it look great," FP said. "It does look great. It looks better than this."

"How would you know?" Alice said. "Did you get a heat coming on just looking at it?"

FP felt his face going red, felt shame pooling in his gut. 

"Fuck you," he said. "It's a fine car. It's distinctive."

"So _you_ buy it," Alice said, rolling her eyes like this came down to dollars and cents instead of the time FP had put into that car, the time her old man had put into it.

"It was never for her?" he asked Glenn later.

"She doesn't want anything from me, boy," Glenn said, almost reproachfully. 

Then, kindly, he'd dropped the keys in FP's hand.

"Thought you were coming around for you," he said gently. "Not her. Figured I'd sell it to you cheap, but hell, you earned the damn thing with the work you put in."

The pity went unspoken. He hadn't earned this. He'd been chasing some fool dream, thinking he could give Alice something as big as freedom. But he was like Glenn: Alice didn't really want anything if it came from him. 

"I'll pay something for it," he told Glenn. 

He'd have to. If his old man found out he'd gotten a free car from Glenn Roarke, he'd start making noise about FP selling his snatch or something. Better to pay. Anyway he wanted to pay for it. He didn't want people thinking he took charity. And he didn't want people figuring out what had made Glenn Roarke want to offer him that. How FP Jones thought he had any business with Alice, how he'd stupidly assumed he knew Alice well enough to give her what she wanted.

-

After his first year in prison, something about his son's visits changed.

His boy was freer, easier around him. Sat there long-limbed and loose, slinking from topic to topic. He was writing a short story now. He was playing drums in Archie's band. He was in honors English.

Jughead had always wanted a relationship like this, where he could tell FP these things. An Archie and Fred Andrews relationship. With a father who could sit there and actually pay attention to him. And that shouldn't have been hard for FP. Should have been a simple thing to give his boy, like making sure a plant got enough light. But FP, in his worst moments, hadn't even been able to give Jughead that.

 _You want the goddamn Brady Bunch!_ he'd yelled, after Gladys and Jellybean had left. _Well guess what, Jughead? This is what you've got instead. You've got me._

Too crooked to work. Too stupid to take an interest in his boy's talents. Too drunk to notice if his own son came and went, so he hadn't even realized that Jughead had moved out until some of the Serpents had approached him about his boy living at the Twilight.

No wonder it took prison to make Jughead relax around him. Took locking FP in place, _making_ him pay attention to his kid for once.

"I really, really didn't think Weatherbee was gonna let me start it," Jughead was saying. "But Betty put in a good word, I guess."

"It's like her club, right?" FP tried. "Like the Blue and Gold."

Jughead puffed up, offended and preening all at once. FP's smart kid, who knew he was smarter than his old man.

"No," he said, snorting. "The Blue and Gold is the school newspaper. The Pen With Pep is a literary journal."

He grinned, suddenly toothy and animated, more alive than he was whenever he talked about anything else.

"Betty says--"

Except that. 

Betty. Bright, beautiful. Damn kind, really kind, never faked it like her mother did. Good to Jughead, always. And absolutely off-limits to Jughead, too.

"Anybody else on your library journal?" FP cut in.

"Literary," Jughead corrected, annoyed.

"Yeah," FP said, knowing he was being short about it, but figuring it was for the best. "Is it just you and Betty, like the newspaper?"

Shit, did Jughead ever do anything that didn't involve Betty? Or Fred's son? FP, now FP more or less got along with anybody, would give anybody a shot until they fucked him over. His boy wasn't like that, though. Took a lot for Jughead to accept anybody new. That was probably FP's own fault. He hadn't exactly taught Jughead to look for the best in people, hadn't ever given his boy any indication that most people even had a best. But a part of him wanted to share the blame with Alice, too. Like maybe Jug had inherited from her his tendency to be prickly and territorial.

"Well, Veronica joined," he was saying now, rolling his eyes. "And Kevin. All Betty's friends. And Archie's. And Cheryl's always there. Sometimes Archie, too. A couple times he brought Reggie Mantle."

He said the last name like he was sharing a dark, unbelievable kind of joke. Maybe one that disgusted him a little. FP was sure that he'd heard the name before, but couldn't figure out what made it familiar.

"That boy bothering you?" he said, taking a stab in the dark.

Jughead shrugged.

"He's just there to make eyes at Veronica," he said. "Alpha on alpha romance. The degree of ego involved boggles the mind."

Disdainful about it. That was always Jughead, when he was talking about alphas, athletes, rich people, stuck up people -- egos of any shade or variety.

Part of that, FP was proud to admit, came from FP himself. But part of that was just Jug, just what happened when a kid that smart came from nothing, expected nothing, always on the edge of things, always a little darker and stranger than the rest. An omega from the wrong side of town. 

Funny, how Jug could find his own kind of rebellion in that. Now FP, FP really _was_ ashamed. Or had been. He was trying not to be. Jughead had never been like that, himself, and FP was proud of him for that. Proud that his kid could be defiant about it, instead of damaged. 

Though he could do with a little less alpha derision. Not because alphas were so great or anything. Just because, as far as FP could tell, the only alpha Jug would put up with was his _sister_.

"Any of 'em make eyes at you?" FP tried now. "Those alphas and betas at your school?"

Jughead shut that down quick.

"Oh no, no, no," he said, with that grin of his that wasn't really a grin. "No, we are not talking about that. That is not what we talk about."

"Alright," FP said, subsiding. 

Jughead looked relieved.

But now FP was thinking of how happy Jughead had been with Betty. How eager Jug had been to have dinner at Alice's house. And how excited about something regular, something healthy like a dance. 

His boy, finally a plant that had caught the light.

FP wanted that for him. Not with Betty. But with somebody. In twenty years, he didn't want there to be a question about whether Jug belonged to somebody, whether Jug was wanted.

-

When Alice didn't show up for the next conjugal, it wasn't a huge surprise. But the guards joked about it.

"You scare your alpha away, Jones?"

"Pissed her off. She doesn't scare easy," FP said, keeping his cool about it. No point getting upset. He'd brought this on himself, not playing the easy lay Alice wanted. 

He didn't bother saying that Alice wasn't his alpha, because he was starting to sound like a broken record about that. So he kept that bit to himself. That was something to mull over in the dark moments, that was all. How they weren't a real partnership. Weren't even halfway to healthy. Betty and Jug, for all that they weren't exactly healthy either, had still been better. Looked out for each other. Worked together. Had each other's backs.

That had never been FP and Alice.

But he wasn't gonna make a stink about it. A real man took the hand that was dealt him and handled it without dramatics. Without bitterness, too, though that had always been harder for FP.

At least Jughead was still visiting. Came every month. Betty came with him every now and then, or else sent letters, less cryptic than her sister's. And Rex and the boys came too. Usually just because they wanted FP to pass messages along to somebody else, somebody with a better chance of getting out soon and re-joining the Serpents.

Generally those were short, to-the-point visits, no trouble. FP really wasn't expecting trouble from the Serpents. He'd made himself their leader, made a place for the youngest and weakest, got them all work where he could. Never snitched. Always shown up. That was one thing it had always seemed to him he could be proud about: FP wasn't much for regular society, but he was good at being a Serpent.

But now he was in prison. And he was no Hiram Lodge, he didn't have the urge to micromanage his empire behind bars. Shit, he didn't have an empire. He had forty guys and their bikes and some dime bags of weed; and staying good, making his kid proud, nurturing that fragile bond with Jughead -- that meant more to him than the gang did.

But you couldn't trade away something like the Serpents and expect them to go quiet. That wasn't how it worked. As fall turned to winter and FP started his second year in earnest, Rex showed up again. It went fine, up to a point.

That was the point where Rex said, "Your old man asked after you."

Something in FP went real quiet. Real dead, in fact. 

"Yeah?" he said.

"Yeah," said Rex. He erupted into laughter. "Wanted me to congratulate whatever alpha finally cornered you in here and rawed you, man."

FP launched himself across the table. 

Should have been hard to beat a man's face in when his hands were manacled. But it was pretty easy, all things considered. Still, a part of him knew it was the wrong thing to do. It was Rex ribbing him, that was all, Rex showing off because he was the new head Serpent and FP was locked up. Whatever he said to FP here, it wouldn't get back to him. It was FP who the guards would fall on, FP who'd end up fucked.


	3. Chapter 3

In the end, it was Betty who did what all the blue stationary and perfect penmanship in the world couldn't.

She approached Harvey honestly. 

Actually, first she approached Harvey's adoptive parents. There was, after all, no way to tell if Harvey even knew he was adopted. He hadn't divulged that information while waxing rhapsodic about the Ravens, his passion for football, and the surprising benefits of longstanding school rivalries.

"Just my luck," Alice heard Jughead gripe after his and Betty's interview with Harvey. "I get a brother, and he's Paul Walker from Varsity Blues."

An affable god on the field, but not guaranteed to be a genius off of it. The Kinkles, impressed by Betty's open demeanor, pretty smile, and conservative pastel sweater, admitted that they hadn't told Harvey about the adoption until he'd hit college. There, a genetics major friend had casually informed him that two light-eyed people only very rarely produced a dark-eyed child.

Harvey had at first concluded that he was special. This was an easy conclusion to make: he was the only child of a prominent attorney, in fact the president of the Greendale bar association, and the heir to the Kinkle Breakfast Cereal company. That both the president and the heir were absolutely nothing like him (blue-eyed, bookish, unathletic) had never affected him very much. He took the news of his adoption with equanimity. He took his second meeting with Betty, now open about being his sister, with just as much calm.

"Oh," he apparently said. "I always wondered how I ended up an alpha when mom and dad aren't. I guess our dad is?"

Betty said, "Mom." 

Harvey apparently said, "Right on. Gender equality," without a single trace of sarcasm.

When Betty came home and reported this meeting, Alice was livid. It was a formless rage, one she didn't want to push on her daughter, so it just bubbled up inside her. The chance to tell Harvey, to control how he found out, had been taken from her. Betty watched her calmly, like she'd known this would be her mother's reaction.

"What if they'd told you to go away?" Alice demanded. "What if they hadn't let you speak to him? What if they'd decided you were a deranged impostor, Betty, and called the police--"

Betty snorted.

"They're not you, mom," she said, with a shake of her head that set her ponytail bobbing. "The Kinkles don't think the worst of people."

Or else Betty wasn't the kind of girl anyone thought the worst of. She was Riverdale's friendly blonde next door. Alice had worked hard to make her that way, and never realized that it had wrapped Betty in a steely morality. Everyone gave her a chance, so she wanted everyone to give everyone a chance. Everyone wanted to welcome and protect her as soon as they saw her. So she wanted to extend that to everyone else, too.

"I had the right to tell him," she said now, determined. "He's my brother. And somebody had to!"

Later, Alice would learn from Polly (who always cracked under questioning) that Betty had had a burning need to vet Harvey, that she hadn't wanted her mother to meet anyone who wouldn't want to meet Alice in turn, who would judge Alice or be cruel to her. She'd learn that Betty and Jughead had decided between them that the best place for the meeting would be Alice's house, not Harvey's, so that Alice could control as much as possible. But she didn't know that right then.

So when Betty said, casually, "He wants to come over and meet you if you'll let him," Alice only said, "Your room, Elizabeth. _Now_. You're grounded."

Then she'd sat in the living room, somehow hating everything about it -- what would Harvey think of the oppressively cheery curtains? That settee, that suddenly looked like it was trying too hard? -- and considered the possibility that Harvey might be how Betty described.

Handsome. Healthy. Happy. All of that was a genuine relief, a pool of light in her chest, right where there had only been bitter loss before.

But she'd never considered that her Chic might be calm and unflappable. Here she was, unbearably anxious after more than twenty years of locking him in a corner of her heart, keeping him secret and prized. While he was -- interested. Calmly intrigued. 

He didn't need her. She wasn't the woman who'd mothered him.

She was sitting very still, eyes wet, when Jughead came in through the kitchen door, spotted her, and quietly turned on his heel. Only a trace of his shadow had even made it into the room, but that was enough for Alice to know it was him.

"Jughead," she said sharply.

No answer.

"I know you can hear me through your headphones, Jughead," she said.

Slowly, he came back in, managing to make it look like he was being prodded along at the end of a bayonet. 

"Given that Betty has forced our hand, it looks like we'll be meeting Harvey soon. Are you nervous about your brother, Jughead?"

Jughead stared at her. It was the kind of deliberately blank stare that every child on the South Side perfected in order to get through unwanted conversations with adults and authority figures. It had no effect on Alice. It was like staring at a picture of herself, age thirteen, before she'd figured out that sometimes it was better to look sweetly approachable. 

"Harvey's aggressively normal," Jughead offered, after a minute. "Well-adjusted. A typical teenager. In short, everything I'm not. Would the night be nervous about the day?"

Alice had to roll her eyes. 

"He's in his twenties," she said flatly. "And not thinking you're normal is the most normal emotion a teenager can have." 

Jughead looked briefly offended. Alice met this with a pleased _gotcha_ look of her own. She wasn't even sure why. It was just natural to fall into this pattern with him, challenging and untrusting as he was. Alice supposed that in this he was like her: they both had no reason to take things at face value, they both understood that any strangeness could give the world a reason to mistreat you. Not traits that bred a lot of trust. 

Still, she preferred to blame FP for this nervy, difficult character of Jughead's. Neither of Alice's daughters had inherited that kind of thing. It had to come from FP's side.

"Are _you_ scared to meet Harvey?" Jughead said suddenly.

Alice's turn to go blank. She was better at it. She'd been doing it for longer, after all.

"What a ridiculous question, Jughead," she said. "He'll be the nervous one, meeting his birth mother, two sisters, a brother--"

"Oh, you want me there," Jughead said casually.

Alice stared at him. 

"My dad said you might not want Harvey to know about him," he added. He smiled, but it was distant and sardonic and a little heartbreaking, for all that Alice got the sense she was being somehow manipulated by it. 

"If we don't tell him about my dad," Jughead continued, "then you can't explain--" he waved at himself, from the tip of his beanie to the soles of his scuffed shoes, and every ridiculous denim-suspender-ratty-t-shirt inch in between. Then he raised his eyebrows at her and turned on his heel for Betty's room, adding, "Later."

Alice almost snapped that Betty was grounded, but of course, Jughead was family -- grounding didn't mean no family.

And the rage spreading through her -- the anger at the thought that Jughead still trusted her so little, still _expected_ so little -- that wasn't Jughead's fault. Alice had a much, much better idea of who to blame.

-

FP, being FP, had never bothered to set up a phone line. Alice suspected he didn't have the money. But also, he didn't have anyone to call. Jughead had a useless cell phone attached to no plan that Alice could detect. She'd offered to add him to her plan for his latest birthday and had only received that blank stare in response. 

So she had to visit FP in person. Except that when she arrived, the dead-eyed department of corrections employee who handled visitor intake said, "He's not allowed."

"Not allowed what?" Alice said.

" _Not allowed_."

"This is prison. The whole concept is 'not allowed.' You're going to have to be more specific," Alice snapped. 

"He started a fight and nearly killed three guards," said the corrections employee. "He's going to be going into the hole once he's out of the hospital block. And not getting any visitors. Not allowed."

"What?" Alice said. She thought, _hospital block?_ And then, once that fear had rudely nestled itself in her bones, _how am I going to tell Jughead?_

Then immediately after that, a return to anger. Steely and absolute.

"What do you mean -- hospital block? Hole?"

"Solitary," said the corrections employee.

" _Solitary_?" Alice said. She felt herself kicked into overdrive, into the kind of fury she usually only reserved these days for neighborhood committee members who didn't pay their dues. "I want to talk to the warden," she snapped. "I want to know exactly what happened."

"You family?" said the corrections employee.

"I'm his--"

His what? She'd as good as said it before: she was his alpha. He was _hers_ , even if the son of a bitch didn't know it, even if he wanted to pretend otherwise. 

But she couldn't get the word 'alpha.' out. Somehow the fact that FP had never actually agreed to that made it feel like a lie.

So instead she said, "Why is he in the hospital? Is he hurt?"

Again that dead-eyed look. 

"If you're family, you can ask for an incident report," said the corrections employee. "Otherwise, you have to leave."

-

There were two Riverdales. One a place of picket fences, green lawns, appropriately-sized families, unspoiled by crime and poverty. The other a community of fugitives, misfits, gangsters. Unspoiled by the law. And FP had always been clear about how his loyalty lay with the latter. How he didn't want or need more than that. He lived and breathed the South Side, welcomed its grime and aggression, rolled in its violence like a pig in the mud. 

Alice should just leave him to rot. 

Instead she found herself placing calls to the warden, to the corrections department, to FP's old defense attorney. Even to a bleeding heart prisoners' rights organization she and Hal had once mocked in the pages of the Register. Betty found the number for that last one. Betty always countered despair with action. Just the sight of Jughead sitting there frozen, clutching the one-line incident report ("inmate poses a threat to the continued maintenance of order") was enough to push her to do something.

That was no surprise. The surprise was Polly, slipping into the offices of the Chronicle around lunch time one day, when Alice was busy haranguing her own attorney over the phone.

"Yes, I know what it would look like if Hal figured out I was trying to help him. I always know what it looks like--" 

"Mom," Polly said.

"Not now," Alice said. Then, to her lawyer, "I'm not asking you to tell me not to do it. I'm asking--"

" _Mom_ ," Polly said.

She slammed some papers on Alice's desk. The slam was very not-Polly. Polly was soft-faced and long-lashed, all golden hair and peppy cheerleading chants. Or at least she had been, before Jason Blossom and the Sisters and the babies and long wild nights spent in woods and in attics. Now, more and more, something unsettling would linger around Alice's sheltered North Side daughter. Alice stared at her, hardly hearing her lawyer's remarks. 

"Read it," Polly said. 

Letters. In awful handwriting, handwriting from a bad memory, handwriting that screamed, "I stopped trying after third grade." Here and there there was a black chunk where a word had been removed by censors. 

Letters from prison.

Alice hung up the phone. It was a struggle to keep her voice even.

"Why has FP been writing you letters?"

Polly immediately looked sweetly guilty. Polly had been raised to look sweetly guilty, and had very sweetly taken to that. But in this case guilty didn't mean entirely _repentant_. Her voice was small but determined when she said, "Because I've been writing him."

"We said no more secrets--" Alice began, sharp about it.

"You said that," said Polly. "You said that, and you meant that Betty and I aren't allowed to have them, while you get to keep yours until you can use them to get something."

She wasn't wrong, but that was also not the point. 

"What could you possibly have to discuss with a middle-aged convict you don't even like--"

"You!" Polly said. Her voice wasn't loud, but it was unexpectedly vehement. Alice stared at her. Polly bit her lower lip, but pressed on. 

"He knows more about you than I do. He's the man who dumped Jason in the river, and he knows more about you than me, mom."

"That's ridiculous," Alice said, flat and immediate. "You're my daughter, Polly."

Not just her daughter. Her oldest. Her first. The one by her side while Betty was out fixing cars with her father. Betty was more like Alice, yes, but Polly had often been more _Alice's_. More malleable, more interested in the things Alice liked: making sure the table looked neat and the house perfect, making sure her hair and nails were presentable, finding utter delight in being a good girl.

Before Jason Blossom, anyway.

"You promised me there would be no more secrets," Alice's not-so-good girl said stubbornly. "After the Sisters -- you _promised_. And then Betty and I found out you were from the South Side from the _paper_."

"For your information, Betty knew already," Alice said, and watched hurt flicker on Polly's face. Hurting Polly hurt Alice in turn. But even bigger than the hurt was the sudden paranoia that came on at the thought of FP telling Polly things about the South Side, anything about the South Side. She rifled through the letters -- five or six of them, it looked like -- fast and panicky about it. Hating him for slipping. Trying to make sense of his blocky print ( _special ed chickenscratch_ , she had used to call it, mocking him, and why hadn't she been kinder? Suddenly it felt like this might not have happened if she had only been kinder).

She was reading and re-reading, too furious, too inexplicably sad to even process most of what FP had written, when Polly said, "Mom. Here," and put a finger on one paragraph in particular.

_Your mom was tough smart and a lot like Betty. Not so nice. But she wanted to be good. The South Side Serpents stuff is her business and she can tell you about it. You can ask fifty times and I won't. Like I tell Axel, my cellmate, some secrets just belong to other people and you can yell as much as you want but you won't get them by yelling._

So he hadn't told about the Serpents. The relief was absolute. Alice breathed out, hard, and hardly realized she was doing it. Hardly realized she'd said, "Good. He kept his mouth shut," out loud. 

She still hadn't come clean about the Serpents. Being from the South Side, yes. But never the Serpents. Never that celebration of viciousness, that cycle of petty recruitments and small intimidations that had characterized life in the gang. 

"No, mom," Polly said. "He has a cellmate. Somebody who probably knows more than we do about what's happening with him."

Then, "Wait. Kept his mouth shut about what?"

Then, "You were a _Serp_ \--"

"That doesn't matter," Alice said quickly. 

It did. She could see on Polly's face that it did, that the fact that she'd never shared this mattered to Polly more than anything, so it took special reserves of ruthlessness to quash that. To move on to how unexpectedly, helpfully brilliant her daughter had just turned out to be. 

"This is good," Alice told her. "This is very helpful. We can look up this other inmate--"

"You're a Serpent," Polly said, in a voice somehow smaller than before. 

"I was," Alice admitted. "I'm not now. But that's not important, Polly--"

"It is to me--"

"I'm not proud of it!" Alice said. "Don't you think I would have told you if I were proud about being that kind of woman--"

"What kind?" Polly said. "The kind that -- that gets knocked up in high school? That has two kids she never planned for? You were so awful about me doing it, and this whole time it was because you hated _you_ , and maybe--"

She broke off. Alice's good girl, her sweetheart Polly, the nicest of the Coopers, looked at her mother with betrayed eyes.

"Maybe you _should_ hate you," she said. Then she turned on her heel and left.

-

FP had written:

_Never met anybody as proud as your mom about some things, while still so ashamed about other things._

Then, a few letters after that:

_I always liked best what she didn't like about herself. That made me hard for her to really like. You want people to agree with you about what's best in you and what's worst._

Then, a few letters after that:

_She has a right to be proud. She made you and your sister. She kept you safe. She has that big house and all that money. She's a great cook. I always thought that wasn't the real Alice but it is. It's the Alice she wanted to be._

_I'd be proud too, if I'd turned out the person I wanted to be._


	4. Chapter 4

It hurt to breathe. 

FP was so short of breath, though, that a part of him kept trying to take in air anyway, gasping for it. Then that would leave him dizzy with pain. He thought maybe three or four ribs were broken, but they wouldn't tell him. Just kept him cuffed to the bed and showed up to give him painkillers, prod him, get him to walk around. That was good. You weren't supposed to lie still for long periods when your ribs were broken.

Problem was, after they'd pulled him off Rex and beat him so hard they broke his ribs, they'd taken him to another room, made him lie on the floor, and stomped on his legs a couple times for good measure. 

So it hurt to hobble around, too.

They said that when it stopped hurting, he'd get a month in the hole. No direct contact with anyone, not with the other inmates, definitely not with his boy. 

The prison chaplain, who was the only guy who'd address FP like he was even halfway human, told him there was always a silver lining. This time the silver lining was that he didn't feel sorry for himself because of Alice or because of Jughead. He felt sorry for himself because of himself. Because he'd been stupid. 

He'd definitely told Jughead once or twice, while in his cups, _yeah, keep acting like you have it so bad. There's guys who have it worse than you half a mile down the road in the cellblock, but they're smart enough to keep their mouths shut about it._

Smart about not causing trouble. Not trying to be clever, big, or tough. Those were the rules in prison. That was what you did if you wanted to make it out. He knew that. He'd known that for years.

But Alice had always been right about him. He was shit for brains.

-

For the first three or four years right after Jughead had been born, he'd tried to do the right thing, the smart thing, and kick the Serpents. Even though you never really left something like the Serpents. Even Alice was probably still careful to avoid certain streets. Probably still looked over her shoulder, alarmed, any time she heard the roar of a motorcycle. Because that was the thing about being a snake: shed your skin, and so what? It wouldn't turn you into a dog or a housecat or something. You'd still be a snake.

But still. He'd started to do less for the gang. Still was cordial, still showed up for a meeting if Rex or Mustang said he had to, but they'd all seen him when he was ungainly and humiliated. Knocked up. They'd stopped laughing after he 'd slammed enough of them to the ground, but the message was clear. Somebody like FP, an omega, he wouldn't be much use to them after a certain point anyway. 

So he faded out. Not a big dramatic break like Alice had made, but just an understanding. FP had a kid now. He was still living in his old trailer, still driving his old truck, but he was a family man. A father with a tiny, quiet, big-eyed kid he'd brought home on his lap, clutching him with one hand while the other was on the steering wheel. Breathlessly relieved that the nurses hadn't seemed to care that he couldn't afford a car seat. So once they'd handed Jughead off to him, he'd hit the gas and torn off for home, for this strange new world where he had a son. 

So then it was him, Jug, and FP's old man. It was still the old man's trailer FP lived in. Or it had been his, before he mortgaged it to the bank for quick cash. As long as FP took on the mortgage, signed his life off to the bank and helped pay off that balance, he said FP could stay. And FP didn't have anywhere else to go at that point, so he did stay.

Stayed and worked. Stayed and _tried_. After a year of working for other men, tearing out roofs and laying down floors until his fingers bled, he called Fred Andrews up and he pitched the idea for the company. 

After that things changed. He'd drop Jughead off real early with Fred's wife and Fred's boy, pick Fred up, and head down to the work site. Whatever pang FP would feel when he lost sight of Jug, that dark little head vanishing behind the shiny door of the Andrews household -- well. He'd get some of his glow back when he saw the sign: JONES AND ANDREWS CONSTRUCTION. And, really, the only trouble would come at the end of the day, back at Sunnyside. There FP's dad would be, ready to ask FP if he was tired of giving it up to Fred, ready to remind him that a real man didn't need to sponge off other men's families. Ready to say some unnecessary shit, some mean shit. 

_You know, that runty little kid of yours would have died at birth in my day, like nature intended._

And FP wasn't a kid anymore. He fought back now. Now, when Jug came home with that oversized spiky hat he'd found somewhere, and FP's dad ridiculed it until Jug cried, FP punched his father so hard he chipped the old man's tooth. Only to get hit back, because the older Joneses -- they lived like it was the law of jungle. He'd yell at Jug to run out and play, dammit, or to go in the bedroom if it was cold outside, but Jughead still saw it all. Still lived it. And for the first time FP kind of understood what Alice had meant every time she'd looked around at Sunnyside and muttered, "This is no way to live."

It was no way to live. No way for his boy. Especially since FP couldn't seem to get the hang of being a father. Couldn't get Jughead to smile easy, to lay off the nerves and the panic that came from being a part of that household. He'd go into the bedroom after and find Jug curled up in a ball, hands on his eyes. And FP would tell him, "Come on. Get up. You've gotta be tough." And saying that didn't fix anything. But he didn't have any other words to give Jughead when it got that bad.

So he started planning to get out. Thought about maybe buying a little house on the North Side. Wouldn't have to be fancy like Fred's (or Alice's, just next door, gleaming and forbidden). It only needed to be a small thing on a side street, with just enough room for him and his boy. When he and Fred got a grassy, tree-strewn lot to set up a permanent office in, he spent an afternoon hammering and sawing a little house for Jughead in the back. A treehouse built more like a promise. 

_I'll get you the real thing soon._

He hadn't asked for Jughead, but he did love him. Loved how fast he started talking, smart right away. Loved how he'd babble in the car in the morning, making up kid-stories about the spider in the Andrews garden, the two pretty ladies who lived in the sky. Simple, funny stuff. Stuff even his dad could help him with, supplying a line here or an ending there. For someone whose conception had been so baffling and painful, Jug wasn't either. It took no time at all for FP to stop thinking of him as something that had happened because of Alice, something tied to his hurt, and started just being glad to have him.

That made it harder when they both got sick. For FP, it was just some bug he'd picked up at work, something he ignored because, well, after Jughead had been born he'd always felt a _little_ bad. Nauseous. Tired. Dizzy sometimes. Wasn't worth going to the doctor for. That just led to bills. So he ignored it this time, only this time he turned out to be really sick, and he gave it to Jug. Jughead was so feverish by the time FP took him to the clinic that the doctor looked at FP like FP was the problem. 

_You know, if this happens once, I tend to let it slide. But I always question myself. And if it happens again, you can bet your bottom dollar that I'm calling CPS._

FP lost it. Started screaming at the guy, and Fred had to haul him outside and talk him down before he got violent. And then, later, when he brought Jughead back to the trailer, all swaddled up and dosed with medications, and his dad made a fucking _crack_ \--

It was one thing for FP to grow up hearing about how he was weak and worthless, probably only good for fucking. It was another thing for Jughead to deal with that. To be curled up with his hands over his eyes, delirious and coughing, for hours. Hours before his father and grandfather stopped fighting long enough to notice what was wrong with him. It pissed FP off so much that in the end, after that last fight, he just threw his father out. Just backhanded that feeble old man down the stairs. Then, after slamming the door in his dad's face, FP turned around and caught Jughead standing there looking at him. Frozen stiff. 

Like, even that young, he could see violence in FP. Could see something vicious just lurking. Jug locked himself in the bathroom that night and turned on all the taps, nearly flooded the whole trailer. FP had to take apart the lock, screaming and pounding on the door the whole time. Complained about it to Fred the next day, about Jug making a bad thing worse, and Fred stared at him like he'd grown a second head.

"FP, he's _four_ ," he said. 

And after that, more and more, FP would kind of get the sense that Fred didn't think he was good for his own son or something. Like now even people besides Jug and his old man could tell that FP wasn't measuring up. It filled him with a rage he had no outlet for, except to try and get out of the trailer sometimes. Get some damn air, driving down to the river to drink and be by himself, or to the Whyte Wyrm to be with the guys. Just to spend an evening pretending he wasn't the only thing Jug had and the worst thing Jug had all rolled into one.

Around that time, he started hiring Gladys Russo to look after Jug. She didn't expect much money. Didn't expect much of anything. Had dropped out of high school and worked at the drive-in, and was happy for the extra cash. But the way Jughead was with her, and the way he was around FP? Night and day. 

Jughead had stopped telling him stories. Had stopped talking much at all around his dad. But he liked playing house with Gladys. Would light up when Gladys gave him a snack, would start babbling about the talking fish on the wall and how it had visited the moon. Would call Gladys, "Mom," without blinking an eye, like he thought he should have a mother, _would_ have a mother, even if it took a little childish delusion to get there.

"Do you tell him not to do that?" FP asked her once, tense about it.

Gladys shrugged.

"I tell him, but he doesn't listen. He's hard-headed. Like his old man."

And his old man's old man. FP's father had landed on his feet, got some Legal Aid types to put him up in an assisted living facility for cheap. But he still came around sometimes, just to put his stamp on things, to remind FP where he'd come from and how much he was worth.

By then FP was spending most weekends with the Serpents, joining in unasked when they needed an extra guy to scare the Canadians off their turf. Taking that hidden violence, that talent for intimidation, and making it worthwhile. As a father, he was useless. As a Serpent, he was celebrated. And if that got the boys to start roughing up his old man again, until _he_ stopped coming around -- well. So much the better.

That was, officially, the reason FP re-joined. That was why people thought he'd shrugged on the jacket again.

It wasn't just that, though. It was all the little things adding up: the dourness of the trailer, Fred's shiny front door (and Alice's, right next to it). How Fred looked at him with quiet disapproval, and how Jug channeled his disapproval into painful quiet. And Jug becoming an omega, and FP becoming the guy who inadvertently helped recruit them. And the first time he went to prison, and then the second and the third. And how he knocked Gladys up without meaning to, and how easily that JONES AND ANDREWS CONSTRUCTION sign got sawed in half, the JONES half dumped in the landfill.

Really, there was no going back when he came home one night and Jug was lying on the pull-out couch, talking to himself about a boy and a girl who ran away in a green truck. FP was just so glad to catch him talking that he couldn't help himself. Leaned over his kid in the moonlight, brushed his hair back from his face. Jug winced. He could smell the liquor coming off FP, probably. FP felt ashamed and then angry about it.

"Stop that," he said roughly. "Trying to say good night to you. Hey, I've got a good ending for that story if you want it."

Maybe this time the girl liked the truck. Maybe this time the boy wasn't stupid. Maybe this time they didn't need to make things ugly to produce something good.

"No," Jughead said, shaking his head very quickly. "No, no, no, no, no. I don't want your ending."

That -- _that_ was what had really done it. Made FP stop trying. It was how Jughead was like Alice, in a way. He didn't really need FP and he didn't want him, either.

-

He healed. You always healed, even when you didn't want to. 

The chaplain came around again to prepare him for the month ahead. Usually FP talked to him about Jughead, but this time he didn't. He was still allowed letters, but Jug, who was so full of words, hadn't written.

So he didn't talk about his boy. Or at least not about the boy he'd brought up. Instead he talked for a while about Harvey, about finding out he had another son, one he'd probably never know if the mother had her way.

"Have you asked this mother?" the chaplain said. "If you explained what he means to you, maybe she would understand--"

"Explained what?" FP said. "Nah, she'd say he's better off not knowing me. And who's to say she'd be wrong?"

"You need something to look forward to," the chaplain said disapprovingly. "It's just a month, but a month can feel long when you're alone. And for someone like you, an omega--"

FP must have stiffened or something, because the chaplain broke off. Good. FP didn't want to hear about how people like him needed family, needed a crew. The way he saw it, everybody needed somebody to belong to. It didn't have anything to do with the plumbing.

"If there's an issue with the mother," the chaplain tried now. "Some bad history. Maybe you can use the time to think of how to resolve that."

FP barked out a laugh. Couldn't help it. 

"Issues, back issues, whole damn newspapers," he said. "But I can't solve in a month what I haven't been able to solve in a lifetime."

"Have you tried?" the chaplain asked. 

"With Al-- with the mother?" FP said, swallowing the name like a secret. He didn't want to just toss it around. He'd remind Alice that she was a South Side girl, a snake, when she was in front of him. But he respected that that fact didn't have to be anybody else's business. 

"She's something else," he told the chaplain now, bringing up a finger to prove the point. "Smart -- always been smart. Ambitious, too. Sinks her teeth into what she wants and makes sure she gets it. And what she doesn't want, which explains why I spent so long feeling like a chewtoy."

The chaplain looked at him assessingly. FP swallowed hard. He'd said more than he meant to.

"But she's a good mother," he offered. "Good to those she loves. Goes to the mat for them."

And she was unshakable and unyielding when she wanted to be, and she knew how to polish up her sins until they shined so hard they left you blind, and she had the kind of smile that only blossomed properly in the dark. But he wasn't going to tell that to a man of the cloth. Or to anyone. He'd keep all that and mull over it when he was alone, and there was plenty of alone coming. Thirty-one days of it at least, more if he caused any trouble. When he was well enough to walk without crutches and didn't need any more attention paid to his ribs, they escorted him to the hole. 

With the really bad guys -- the murderers and rapists, the lifers. Hooting through the meal-slots in their cell doors. FP's skin itched with the need to fight back, to defend himself, but his hands were cuffed behind him and the cuffs didn't come off until he was in the cell. 

Eighty cramped square feet with a bed, a toilet, a sink. All lit by a sterile white light. And no one else, and nothing to occupy his time for now, because this was a punishment on top of a punishment, so they hadn't let him collect any of his old letters and bring them.

And he wasn't getting any new ones, clearly. Jughead wouldn't be writing him.

Whenever FP let him down, Jughead would get quieter, leaner, and a little bit darker, too. Darkly sardonic. Saying too-clever shit like he had after Gladys and his sister had left:

 _Well, the fewer people there are around, the fewer there are for the Jones men to disappoint, I guess_.

It had made FP go practically batshit to hear that kind of thing. He'd gotten mean back, started sniping back. Driven Jughead away. He wasn't proud of it. He knew, now, how much like his own father that had made him. And he knew that Jug's comments -- they weren't meant to hurt FP. They were a quiet little inward spiral, Jug retreating into his mind and turning on all the taps and just letting all the painful thoughts flood out.

He'd be doing that now. FP hoped Alice was better at dealing with it than he'd been. He would have assumed not, once, but Alice had produced two fine daughters, strong and smart. Maybe she was exactly the person to look after Jughead when things got this bad.

Maybe he should have left Jughead to her a long time ago. 

-

Day one, it wasn't so bad.

-

Day two, fine.

-

Day three. Day three, he kind of lost the sense that 'fine' was something he really understood. 

His brain felt too fuzzy for that.

-

Day four, the hissing from the alpha in the cell across the hall -- a first degree murderer, a kid-killing Clifford-Blossom-level son of a _bitch_ \-- was starting to get to him.

-

Day five, and he was already looking forward to the five minutes he spent with the guards walking him to and from the showers. 

The hissing and hoots got louder, sure. And maybe these were the same guards that had broken his ribs. He couldn't tell. Either way, they were people, a break in the monotony.

-

Day six, and he was like some B-movie cliche, a scene Jughead had probably watched a million times, doing endless push-ups in his cell to keep from screaming back.

-

Day seven, and he started really losing his sense of time. It just kind of expanded, hard to tell if minutes or hours had passed, and he'd get paranoid that what felt like hours was really just a few seconds. Caught himself thinking that the thirty days could stretch into thirty years that way.

-

Day eight, he started pretending he could see seeing his kids. Or at least he told himself he was pretending. It was frightening, facing up to the thought that maybe his brain was serving up a Jughead. A Jellybean. A shadow he thought was Harvey. He knew it was ridiculous, he knew it was only _eight days_ and he should be stronger than this. But his brain didn't know it. 

-

Day nine, when that alpha across the hall hissed about what he was going to do to him, FP started screaming back.

-

Day ten, Alice showed up.

If they hadn't shackled him and marched him to her, he would have assumed he was just pretending to see her. In fact, even with the shackling, they sat him down in front of her and it was like he was trying to swim up from a pool of molasses. Took a few minutes to order things right, to shake off the sterile-light-eighty-square-foot sense that the world shouldn't be this big.

"FP," Alice kept saying. "FP. Are you listening?"

She was introducing him to someone, to a youngish woman in a suit. A lawyer. Not his. Apparently not hers either, apparently a new one.

"Axel tipped us off to the fact that the visitor's room is recorded," Alice was saying. "We've seen the video--"

So she saw that he'd started it. He winced. His mind was still going slow, but if he knew Alice then he knew she'd have something vicious to say about it.

"--press charges," she continued. "This is ridiculous, what they're doing. Thirty days is pushing the limit for what's legal under the worst circumstances--"

Then the lawyer chimed in, but FP hardly processed it.

"Can you give us a minute?" he said. "Me and Alice?"

The lawyer blinked at him, but after three or maybe thirty minutes of back and forth with Alice, she went out into the hall.

"Why are you here?" FP asked then.

Alice looked at him like he'd just tried to eat a shoe or something, like he must have no more than two brain cells to his name. A familiar kind of look from her.

"I just told you," she said briskly. "You may have been out of line, but they clearly used excessive force with you, and they're breaking state law. The max they should have given you is a week, and you've served that--"

"Right," FP said, though it didn't feel right. The funny thing about going in the hole was that it hadn't felt unearned. Like how going to prison hadn't felt unearned. They hadn't pegged him for the right offenses either time, but the offenses were still there.

"I mean why are you here?" he said, getting more to the point. "For me?"

And now she looked angry. That was fine. Anger was glorious on Alice, as good as her ambition or her cleverness. Alice wore anger like it cost a couple thousand dollars, retail-price, but she'd gotten some kid to steal it for her and he, the dumb shit, had luckily known her well enough to get exactly the right size. Exactly what suited her best.

"How dim are you that you have to ask?" she snapped. "I'm not letting you get hurt."


	5. Chapter 5

FP wasn't interested in suing the prison. 

"Just getting out of the hole's enough," he said, voice rough and final. 

By then the lawyer had come back in to explain what she could do for FP. Since FP wanted nothing done, now she looked at Alice awkwardly.

FP had always had low standards. For himself, for others. For life in general. Alice saw it as one of his major failings and it took conscious effort not to scream at him about it. But she wouldn't have screamed at her daughters, at Jughead. She was a PTA president, a mother of four and grandmother of two. She wore cardigans and pale pinks, had up-to-date sofa covers and a career in journalism. She was a success. Successes didn't scream. 

"FP," she began, going sweet instead. Sweet as she'd been when she'd needed something from Hal, when she'd wanted something from an FP who was twenty years younger. "What happened to you was your fault, but it was -- disproportionate. I want, the _children_ want, there to be some justice--"

"I didn't ask what you want," FP said. "Just let it go, Alice."

"No," Alice said. The sweetness fell away. Now she was just pissed off. "They put you in the hospital. How do you think Jughead would feel if he knew the details?"

Now she got a real response.

"You showed him what happened?" FP said, spitting the words out.

"Of course not--"

"Good. Don't you dare," he said. 

"Oh, please," Alice said. "Just because you can't stand the thought of your son seeing you weak--"

"I don't want my son seeing more of that, period. Fights and violence. He's seen enough. And you wouldn't want it for your girls. You think I'm any different?"

Alice blinked, taken aback by the vehemence of his answer, and by how alarmingly well-reasoned it was. She _didn't_ think he was that sensible. It had never occurred to her to see him that way.

Red-eyed, scruffy, wayward and maybe a little frightening. That was FP now. That had always been FP. Darkly appealing, but not the right choice, and not good at making the right choices. Until now, apparently. Until the sheer unfairness of the situation enraged Alice, made her want to strike back at those who'd hurt him--

But all he wanted to do was retreat.

"We can discuss other options," the lawyer said now, cutting into the silence. "It's not unusual for alpha and omega clients to differ on the goals of representation--"

"This has nothing to do with that," both she and FP snapped, at the same time. 

But maybe it did. Alice wasn't the same hungry, vicious girl she'd been. The girl she'd learned not to be, the girl she'd spent the better part of twenty years blaming on FP. But she was still an alpha. She still wanted to protect what was hers. And FP was more hers than anyone else was. More than Betty, more than Polly or Jughead or Harvey -- all her children subtly removed from her, striking at her in different ways. 

She wasn't angry over that. Sad, yes, but there was a layer of pride coiling thickly around that sadness. Children were supposed to grow beyond you. While FP, he'd grown separate from her. Taken his own circuitous, painful path to this point, to the point where he would suffer anything quietly just to protect his son. 

"It'll go easier for Jug if I don't make a big deal about it," he said, leaning onto his forearms and addressing the lawyer. "Right? Lawsuit's a lot of stress. Over something I did, anyway--"

"Yes," the lawyer admitted. "And there are still things we can do. We might be able to keep the incident from cutting against you when you're up for parole--"

"Yes," he said. Another jab of the finger. "Yeah. That. That's what I want."

There was something desperate in his tone that she would have mocked once. She didn't mock it now. She'd wanted him to be better than he was, she'd wanted him out of her life -- but she'd never wanted him this defeated. She'd treated him like a loser, but only rarely had she ever wanted him to actually lose.

Though even she had to admit that it had been a long, long time since she'd last bothered to root for him. 

-

The new lawyer had come doubly-recommended, first by the prisoners' rights organization, then by the Kinkles. Betty and Alice had reached out to them weeks ago, determined to understand what FP could have done that merited both injuries and solitary confinement. 

Jughead had reacted badly.

"Why would you tell those people?" he'd said, looking like the Cooper women had just tried to feed him a breakfast of waterbugs. "What makes you think I want Harvey and Harvey's perfect parents to know my business?"

"Jug, this is to help your dad," Betty said. Alice was proud of her for sounding so even about it, even as her hands curled into fists in her lap.

"Betty's right--" she began.

"No," Jughead said. Like his father, in times of great emotion he became physical, bringing up a hand like he was trying to make a point about something. "No, Alice-- you. I don't care why you did it. But she--"

"We're trying to help," said Betty.

"Alice doesn't even like him!" Jughead said.

Alice mirrored her daughter, even and calm despite the fury underneath. "I never said that--" 

"You didn't have to," Jughead said. "And you know what? He did something wrong and he's getting punished for it. Chapter one hundred in the story of my dad, exactly like the first ninety-nine chapters. We don't have to make a big deal about it."

And at that point they hadn't brought the lawyer on yet, so they hadn't obtained the recording of the visitors' room yet, so -- really -- Jughead might have been right. All they'd had to go on at that point was a general sense of unfairness, something Alice and her daughters were unusually good at sniffing out, but of course not always right about.

But Alice had still wanted to do something. No matter how much Jughead protested, FP's violence had left him quietly unraveling. Weatherbee had waylaid her after the latest PTA meeting to ask if she had any way to reach the Jones boy's foster parents, because Jughead was possibly, hypothetically (and entirely confidentially, you understand) skipping some of his classes. Most of his classes. Every single class except for English, though English was the only class he could afford to skip.

The Wilkins, meanwhile, had been under the misapprehension that Jughead was spending most of his time with Alice, something Jughead had certainly not been doing. That had left the trailer and the Andrews house and Pop's, since Jughead didn't have a very wide social circle. Only by the time she'd checked the trailer and made sufficient attempts to put the fear of god into Fred Andrews, Jughead had already skipped his afterschool literary journal meeting in order to brawl with Reggie Mantle. He lost badly, unless you counted winning in days suspended, because he won quite a lot of those. Betty texted Alice the whole affair. 

So Alice had been fuming by the time she'd found him at Pop's, nursing a black eye and typing away on his library-loan laptop. 

"You know, you don't actually have to look after me," he told her. "Not any more than you have to look after Harvey."

"Don't get cute," Alice said. She was well-versed in the workings of teenagers who became sullen and mean when you annoyed them, because she'd been one of those. "Yes I do."

"Why, because my dad's a deadbeat?" Jughead said bluntly.

"Because I'm your mother," Alice said.

"Yeah, see, my dad always said you shouldn't offer people something they're not asking you for," Jughead said. "So."

It would have been easy to fire back with the truth -- that Jughead's dad was wrong far more often than he was right -- but something gave her pause. Maybe it was the way Jughead said _something they're not asking you for_. Like he'd never wanted this prim traitor to the South Side to take an interest in him. Like he knew that was the nerve to strike. For a second, Alice wanted to strike back.

But he was seventeen and hollow-eyed and miserable, with bruised knuckles and almost nobody but her to want him. So she didn't do that. 

"Do you not want a mother, Jughead?" she asked.

His eyes widened. He didn't say anything. Any other child, and the omission would mean _of course I don't want you in my life, but I'm too polite to say so._

But this was a South Side child. For him it meant, _don't expose me like that._

"That's what I thought," she said. And even though it killed her to reach out to Harvey's parents with her hat in hand, like she was still that girl from the trailer park, she called them the very next day to ask for their help.

Furious at FP, for putting her in that position. But understanding, for the first time, how much they all needed to make sure FP was alright.

-

Or, almost all of them needed that. 

When she broke the news to the kids later -- that FP was out of solitary, but uninterested in addressing the violence and cruelty that had put him there -- Betty and Jughead reacted as expected. Betty was as incensed as Alice was, protesting that someone had to fix a system that was so clearly unjust. While Jughead just said, "Maybe it's better this way," and shrugged. Like he thought that by shrugging he could fool them all into believing a part of him wasn't just as upset.

But Polly said, "Are you going to replace dad with FP?"

Everyone at the dinner table -- except for the babies, who were gurgling away in their high chairs -- stared at her. Polly looked apprehensive and wouldn't meet Alice's gaze, but she didn't take her question back. 

"What kind of--" Alice began. 

"Are you?" Jughead cut in. 

His tone was too pointed and bright. He clearly found the whole idea ridiculous. He shot a conspiratorial look at Betty. 

Betty just looked at her mother. 

"I don't have to tell you that, Polly. That's my business," Alice said, in a tone that brooked no argument. She focused on cutting her meat loaf into smaller portions to demonstrate that the topic was now a closed one. 

"You seem to make him weirdly happy," Polly said, pressing on against all reason. 

"Don't be ridiculous. Of course I don't--"

But Polly kept on insisting, like Alice was responsible for the nonsense FP wrote her. "His letters kind of show you do!" 

"His what?" Jughead said. 

" _Polly_ ," Betty said, in the admiring, relieved tones of someone who had just regained a long-lost mentor. 

"This entire conversation is over," Alice said, needle-sharp about it. "I'm not going to take romantic advice from three high schoolers--"

"I'm not giving you advice," Polly said. "I just want to know. I want to know what you're going to do next. I always want to know."

"Why do you need to know?" Alice snapped. 

"Because I thought you'd support me!" Polly said. "When dad was being horrible about Jason, I thought you'd protect me. You always do! And instead I didn't fit your plan and you sent me away and you didn't even talk to me about it. Like you didn't talk about the divorce, or being from the South Side. I'm not telling you what to do, but I think you owe us some advance warning at least when you're about to do it!"

In the astonished silence that followed, Jughead shoveled an entire slice of meatloaf into his mouth and Betty pushed her chair back from the table like she thought she should get up and do something, but wasn't quite sure what. 

"I agree with that," Jughead said quietly, when the meatloaf was mostly swallowed. 

"Me too," Betty said, plain about it. 

"Thank you," Polly said. 

Alpha-beta-omega, all united in a quiet revolt. Alice understood that her world had somehow tipped on its axis and wasn't sure what to do about it. Possibly the only people not being self-righteous about her right now were the ones not toilet trained. She gathered up her irritation and made sure it came through in her voice when she next spoke, wanting them to understand that she was being very gracious and making a very large concession. 

"If he and I agree to formalize our relationship, I'll be the first to tell you about it," she said. 

Jughead nodded once. Otherwise he looked like he didn't see any danger of Alice-and-FP actually happening. 

But Alice's girls, who were more used to the world arranging itself into proper order, exchanged a look like they knew what was coming and would hold her to her promise. 

-

She fired her divorce lawyer and brought on a shark recommended by the Kinkles. She published an (anonymized) interview with Axel that highlighted the insidious nature of prison guard violence. She hired an additional nanny for the twins, since Polly needed to focus this year on college applications. 

Together, she and Betty forced Jughead back to his literary journal. He needed extracurriculars. 

And she started visiting FP again. An FP who was off the suppressants. It hit her the second the guards pulled the door to the conjugal room open: that hint of sin that had always characterized him. For a second she was fifteen and hungry, forcing him to his knees. Delighting in the cocky, lazy flash of his teeth in the dark.

She didn't force him to his knees now. But without the suppressants, without the pall of liquor he'd used to hide it when they were young, his need was a palpable thing. As soon as the door clanged shut, she was pushing him back on the thin mattress, hearing him give a low growl in response.

"Wasn't sure you'd come," he managed. 

"And _I_ wasn't expecting an omega this needy," she said, pushing aside the top of his jumpsuit. "We're both surprised."

He winced a little bit, but it was a far cry from the productions he used to throw when she pointed out his status. So Alice kept going. She helped him strip off the jumpsuit, not missing the way he groaned a little when her hands brushed his skin. It was a rush. FP Jones, still so black-eyed and handsome and desperate for her. Completely hard once she got him naked, and -- even better -- wet further back. She found herself reaching for him there, fingers brushing his folds, before she even realized what she was doing.

She hadn't asked. Just let herself get taken in by the sight of his naked want, eager to devour it. But if she could ask Jughead if he really wanted her in his life, then she could ask for this.

"Is it--" she said, genuinely unsure for once, "is it alright? If I--"

"Yes," he bit out. "Jesus. What else is this for? I'd have stayed doped up if I didn't want you to help me out, Alice."

Like it was that easy. Maybe it always had been that easy for him. FP had never made it seem like Alice, even at her worst, wasn't good enough. Always just welcomed her. 

"Thank you," she said, and she meant for more than just letting her brush her fingers behind his cock. She pressed one in and heard him give a ragged exhale. He wasn't all that different from her down there, all things considered, but he seemed more sensitive, more attuned to every movement and rub. When she crooked a second finger in, he arced up, baring his throat. She put her free hand on it, possessive. His black eyes locked on hers and she was shocked at how he seemed _pleased_ , almost.

"Fast," he said, between breaths. "Fast and hard, Alice. You know I'm not made of glass."

She knew. And she knew how badly he needed this, knew it from the sweat on his throat, from the sinful-sweet smell of him. Not whiskey at all. Something that got in her head far more than that. Her hand tightened on his neck. She fucked her fingers into him in earnest, getting him off like that. 

By then he had a hand on his cock, stroking it, so that when he came he came twice. Spasming around her fingers, never breaking eye contact with her, knowing it was _her_ that was fucking inside him. And then, a little after that, rubbing himself off the regular way. And looking away and cursing, reaching for his jumpsuit to keep from making more of a mess.

Alice stared at him, bemused. He'd already spent on her fingers.

"Didn't want to just get it on you," he muttered. "Remember how you used to get annoyed sometimes when it got on your clothes. And you--" he gestured vaguely at her frilly blouse, her tailored slacks. "--you look nice."

Clearly, she needed to get naked. She seemed to have taken some of the edge off for FP, or at least his scent wasn't so overpowering anymore. So she took the opportunity to strip, folding her blouse and slacks and putting them aside. He sat on the edge of the mattress and watched her. Shamelessly admiring. Lewd, even.

She liked that. She'd missed that, even though it was exactly the kind of South Side behavior she would have once mocked him for.

"I suppose this means you trust me now?" she said as she unhooked her bra. She said it to avoid thinking of what it meant -- that she'd actually missed something about the South Side.

"You showed up, didn't you?" he said, raising his eyebrows once. Raising them to punctuate the point, or else raising them because he was very taken with her breasts. With FP, it could really be either. 

Then he added, "Got me out of solitary. Even if I didn't trust you, seemed worth it to take a leap." 

Which wasn't a yes. Why couldn't he ever just say _yes_? Yes, I trust you. Yes, I want you. When she leveled him with a glare, he at least had the decency to look ashamed. 

"It's not just you, alright?" he said roughly. "I stopped trusting--"

"Me," she said acidly.

"No," FP said. Now he looked away from her. "Everything. Stopped trusting I would do it for you, since I hadn't. Stopped trusting I could do anything for anybody. Look at Jug. I tried to do right by him and it's not enough."

Alice knew what she should say back, would say back if he were anyone but him. If he were Betty or Polly or even Jughead. She'd say, _you'll get there_ , and she'd say _you're going to get out of here. We'll negotiate for you. You'll make it enough._ She knew how to comfort people. She'd been a mother for almost twenty years now.

But somehow, what came out instead of comfort was, "If you want to do right by him, FP, then why aren't you making those guards pay for--"

He cut her off with a laugh. Not an easy, cocky laugh, but an ugly and bitter one.

"You don't fucking quit," he said. He didn't make it sound like a compliment.

"They hurt you--"

"So what? _You_ hurt me," he said.

Alice reeled back. 

It was the truth. But, stupidly, she'd assumed that because it was in the past, it couldn't ruin things. As though the past didn't always ruin things, didn't always come roaring back with all the unwelcome savagery of a thug on a motorbike. And maybe she'd always known on some level that this would come back, that she'd have to address this.

"FP," she began haltingly, "I've regretted--"

"Forget it," FP said. He was shaking his head now, cutting off her attempts at an apology. "Forget it. I don't even think about it--"

"I do," she said. 

For once it was easy to tell the truth, because this was a truth she should have offered him years ago. How _wrong_ she'd been. Mocking him, claiming him, in that instant every inch a South Side Serpent. As low and cruel as she'd later claim she wasn't. 

But FP only gave another humorless laugh.

"Why think about it? You fucked me. You got what you wanted. Like you always do--"

"I wish it hadn't been like that," she said, her heart breaking. "I wish I hadn't hurt you."

Her eyes were wet. She was acutely aware that she was standing there topless. The only thing that salvaged the situation was that he was completely naked while she still had her underwear on, so really, she was still the more dignified party, not that that was worth a lot. He seemed comfortable naked, or maybe just comfortable being the more humiliated one. Used to it. Maybe she'd helped make him used to it.

"Hurt happens," he said, with finality. Like he hadn't expected any better from her. Suddenly she couldn't see any reason why he would have, and that was by far the most painful thing.

He was getting flushed now and was starting to give off that scent again. Fingering him had sated his need for a bit, but now, at the worst time, his desire was rearing its head again. 

"Do you still want me to help with your heat?" she said, watching the way his Adam's apple bobbed as he took in deep breaths, trying to fight it.

"I need your help. It's not a choice," he said roughly.

A cruel, furious part of her could have walked out right then. Could have gathered up her misery and rage and left him, because even though he didn't deserve that, she still wanted more from him. Wanted him to _want_ her.

Only he kept talking. He added, wincing, "Not that I wouldn't choose you, too."

That -- _that_ changed things. 

She found herself straddling his lap and kissing him. Hungry, too-emotional. Kissing him because she wanted to mark him as hers, because he was, because he'd said so. 

He firmed up beneath her pretty quickly. When she was done kissing him, she ground her hips into him just to see him bring a fist to his mouth and stave off a moan. Her cock had been unsheathed for a while now, ever since she'd seen him come apart on her fingers, so now she pulled off her underwear and rolled a condom on, prison-issue, from the table by the bed. She took her cock in hand and took his in hand too, stroking them together until FP dissolved into quiet curses.

"Not--" he began, like this was difficult for him, "--not there. Lower, Alice. Come on."

So she pulled off of him and made him turn over. Stroked the nape of his neck as she pushed into him.

She couldn't take back what she'd done to him. All she could do now was pet his neck, his back. Murmur encouragement to him as she pushed inside. She didn't know for sure that she was the only person to ever have him like this. But she strongly suspected. 

He reacted perfectly. Instinctively. Fucking back against her, letting her go deeper. Meeting every thrust, giving back as good as he got. A good fuck because he could match her. Even when he eventually reached back and pushed her off briefly, the action enraging, it was just so that he could flip around and get her to push into him from the front. 

"Wanna look at you," he muttered, his gaze greedy again. "Still look so fine, Alice--"

By then her knot was pushing into him. She'd knotted him the time before, must have, but that had been about revenging herself on the South Side. So none of the particulars had registered: not that perfect moment when his tightness gave way, not the ragged gasp he made. Not how his scent peaked, electric with need, even as his eyes widened with something like panic.

This time Alice cupped his jaw, soothing him. Told him how good he was to take it. Told him he was good until the panic subsided. She ended up between his legs, on top of him, enjoying how she had him locked under her. Wondering what it must feel like for him to be so full while she knotted him. It seemed to make FP pliable and finally satiated, shuddering his way through several orgasms on her cock. And one more from his. She rubbed it off for him this time, wanting to hear his drowsy thanks, wanting to know he was glad to be hers.

After that she found herself tracing his chest, his pelvic muscles, the barely-there stretch marks on his stomach. Comparing his to hers, evidence of Harvey, Polly, Betty, Jughead. She'd never spent time like this just exploring him. Always fucked him fast and hard in the dark. That had its place, but she found that she liked this too.

She wanted to be able to do this with him outside of prison. Without time limits. Without a too-fast shower with him once the knot had gone down, FP clumsily offering her soap and then clean towels that he'd rented with his commissary money. 

The fact that he'd had towels and had used his jumpsuit to wipe himself off-- Well. Alice was on the verge of berating him for it. But then one of the guards rapped on the door and issued a five-minute warning. Her anger redirected itself effortlessly. The problem wasn't really FP's lack of common sense. The problem was how little time they had, how little time they'd always had, to address things like that. His short-sightedness. Her venom.

"It's not like you can force me out of here if I'm not dressed yet," she snapped, loud enough for the guards to hear.

FP cursed at her.

"Don't tempt them," he said, and dragged her out of the cinder-block shower and back to the bed, grabbing her clothes and holding them out to her.

"What if you needed more time?" she said testily, even though his scent was muted now, his heat sated.

"I'm not some young thing, Alice," he said. "They know I don't need a sex marathon. Sure want one, but I don't need one."

Despite his words, a part of him sounded relieved. Once, she would have taken that as an unforgivable insult. Now she took it as a challenge. A challenge to force away his panic, to get him comfortable with what he was. More at ease with the times his status let him have some pleasure. 

He was hers. She looked after what was hers. 

"I'll see you next week," she said, as he helped her button up her blouse. His hands paused right at her bellybutton. 

"They're not gonna give me weekly conjugals. I just told you, I don't need--"

"Get your mind out of the gutter," she snapped. "For a regular visit. With Jughead. There's something you and I need to work on."

First, a long talk about the importance of attending all your classes, especially the ones you weren't effortlessly good at. And second -- 

That letter to Harvey. She still hadn't written it or spoken to him directly. She'd only had that disastrous introduction to his parents when she'd been begging for their help. She was sure they'd told him about it. She would have. She would have used that to remind him who'd really raised him, who was best for him. 

It did occur to her that maybe, just maybe, the Kinkles were not _her_. Maybe they were like FP, who'd been hands-off about her relationship with Jughead, as though he wasn't remotely jealous. Still, she couldn't take the chance. She wanted to do some damage control. For herself and for FP. He certainly couldn't be trusted to do that on his own, though she was sure he'd be helpful in other ways.

"Polly tells me that, against all logic and evidence, you write beautiful letters," she told him now. 

Again he froze. Dangerously wary, like he knew he should be screamed at for that.

She didn't scream.

"I thought we could write to Harvey together," she said instead, honest about it. 

She watched a surprised smile break across FP's face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If there is another installment, I promise it will have Harvey. He was supposed to go in this one, but the Alice and FP angst show kind of took over.


End file.
